Evangelical Idolatry: A Special Post for My Bible-Believing Readers.

Does God need us to defend him? This is where I think many of us, who say we believe in God as revealed in the Bible, get into trouble with our faith, as there are things about this God that are hard to understand and, if we are honest, that even offend us. So we strive to make God in our image, rationalizing and justifying (or just flat out ignoring) those things we don't like about how this God is often portrayed, especially in the part of the Bible Christians call the Old Testament.

But really, when we do this, how is that any different than carving our god(s) out of wood and then bowing down to a material image created by human ingenuity and skill? Aren't we simply creating a mental image (i.e., idol) of who we think God should be? Then we are forced to defend what, to us, are God's seemingly indefensible actions as revealed in the Bible. How is this not the same thing as idolatry? The only difference is that we create a mental image of who we think God should be. True, it is not a wooden, stone or metal one, but it is a human-created image just the same. When the revealed God, as found in the pages of the Bible, doesn't fit our image of who we think and have created our God to be, then we manipulate the scriptures via our interpreting, rationalizing, and/or justifying in order to defend the image we have created. And so we continue to believe in, bow down to and worship that image.

Isaiah rebuked the Israelites for creating material images of God and then mocked them for having to physically defend their image. Would he now rebuke us for creating our own mental images of who we want God to be, and then mock us for having to intellectually defend that image? Read Isaiah 40:18-31 (below, NRSV) and see if God really needs, or wants, us to defend him. (Please read it slowly and really think about what the prophet is saying.)

To whom can you compare God? To what image can you liken him? A craftsman casts an idol; a metalsmith overlays it with gold and forges silver chains for it. To make a contribution one selects wood that will not rot; he then seeks a skilled craftsman to make an idol that will not fall over. Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told to you since the very beginning? Have you not understood from the time the earthʼs foundations were made? He is the one who sits on the earthʼs horizon; its inhabitants are like grasshoppers before him. He is the one who stretches out the sky like a thin curtain, and spreads it out like a pitched tent. He is the one who reduces rulers to nothing; he makes the earthʼs leaders insignificant. Indeed, they are barely planted; yes, they are barely sown; yes, they barely take root in the earth, and then he blows on them, causing them to dry up, and the wind carries them away like straw. “To whom can you compare me? Whom do I resemble?” says the Holy One. Look up at the sky! Who created all these heavenly lights? He is the one who leads out their ranks; he calls them all by name. Because of his absolute power and awesome strength, not one of them is missing. Why do you say, Jacob, Why do you say, Israel, “The Lord is not aware of what is happening to me, My God is not concerned with my vindication”? Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is an eternal God, the creator of the whole earth. He does not get tired or weary; there is no limit to his wisdom. He gives strength to those who are tired; to the ones who lack power, he gives renewed energy. Even youths get tired and weary; even strong young men clumsily stumble. But those who wait for the Lordʼs help find renewed strength; they rise up as if they had eaglesʼ wings, they run without growing weary, they walk without getting tired.

Seriously, does the God who created and sustains the universe really need us to defend him? And when we do, are we defending our idolatrous version of who we think God is or should be, or are we defending God as he is revealed in the Bible? To my Bible-believing readers, even if what I'm saying strikes you as wrong (heretical even), I would urge you to think about it for awhile - as honestly as you are able. I've personally come to the place where I know that I spent years, preached many messages and taught many classes, where I defended my own version of who I thought God should be, in order to explain away (or deem as irrelevant), those passages in the Hebrew Bible where God's actions, words and laws, if taken as they are presented, seemed indefensible to me.

The goal I have for the rest of my life is to have an authentic and honest faith. I won't have all the answers. There are some (maybe even many) things about God that I won't understand and may even bother my twenty-first century western sensibilities and that I'll have to live with. But I'm done defending God. He doesn't need me to do that. He doesn't want me to do that. He doesn't have to fit my image of who I think God should be. He doesn't have to do or say what I think he should do or say. He is not accountable to me. And his ways, at least some of them, are beyond my comprehension. I'll end, once again, with what the apostle Paul wrote to the Romans about God's incomprehensible nature, wisdom and character (Romans 11:33-36):

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable are his judgments and how fathomless his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counsellor? Or who has first given to God, that God needs to repay him? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever! Amen.